


Visits

by SuccubusKayko



Series: On a Lark [9]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Angry Sex, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Arguing, Blood and Violence, Depression, Established Relationship, F/M, Female Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Friends to Lovers, I'm Not Ashamed, I'm Sorry, Idiots in Love, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Character Death, It kinda falls apart at the end., Love Confessions, Maybe a little. .., Miqo'te Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Painful Sex, Polyamorous Character, Psychological Trauma, Public Sex, Rough Kissing, Rough Sex, Sad with a Happy Ending, Scars, Self-Hatred, Semi-Public Sex, Suggest tags?, Suggest title?, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Vaginal Fingering, Want/Need, dub-con, unhealthy relationships?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-29
Updated: 2018-03-29
Packaged: 2019-04-14 16:03:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14139537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SuccubusKayko/pseuds/SuccubusKayko
Summary: “I do not care if you throw yourself off another cliff,” he said finally, as he continued through the gates, glaring at the guard that made a move towards them. The man stopped in his tracks and that tugged a faint smirk to his lips. Once they were passed him and alone in the arch of the bridge, continued, “Or if you get chewed up, swallowed, and shat out the other end of a dragon.” He watched as she opened her eyes, one dull, sparkling black, the other glowing phosphorescent yellow, and both narrowing at him in anger."I just need you to come back breathing. . ."OrEstinien is bad at words and emotions.





	Visits

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first explicit smut I'm posting (I think?). I have some more that I'm working on that isn't nearly this intense and messed up. Some super fluffy smut, even. This is basically just because my headcannon dictates that while Estinien and my WoL love each other, it wouldn't be possible for them to get over themselves long enough to start a sexual relationship in a nice way. This is also (kind of) the start of my lore building for my WoL/Aymeric/Estinien trio. Things in this series will not always be this heavy and dark and fucked up, promise! But there will be some dark stuff, too.

The gentle tinkling of metal against glass was the only noise over the winds of the point. The sounds carried only so far, she knew, before they were borne away with the gusts. Francel was, thankfully, not foolish enough to venture out into the dravanian infested snows at this time of night, on a night where the winds tore through the cliffs in gales and tossed up the snows in flurries. Only _she_ was crazy enough to be out in this weather. She could take her time, tonight, and only she and Genbut, stabled comfortably back at the camp, would know. Though the cold was still biting and her hands had long gone numb, the winds did little to disturb her.

 

The thick silver band about her wrist, adorned with jadeite and magicked with air aspected aether, saw to that. A gift from Cid, she remembered, after the first time she'd gone arrow to feather with the Queen of the Gaels, Garuda. They both held a special hatred for that _particular_ primal, because of the ordeal with The Enterprise and the deep scar she'd left on the bridge of her nose. Her mates often joked that Garuda's feathers could be sharp, but she would never admit that it had been the flint of her own stray arrow, snapped off in the torrent and flung back at her, that had done it. She absently brushed a finger over the scar tissue, if she could call it that, as it had not so much healed over as just closed. Though it no longer bled and had long since blackened over, it still looked as though it might reopen if she even sneezed wrong. The pain was gone, too, but she could still remember how the shrapnel had carved through the flesh and cartilage and bone and sprayed her own life's blood to blind her. She hadn't been able to properly breath through it since.

 

 _You always liked that story_ , she thought, as he had watched the airship soar through the Highlands with the harpy _bitch_ as their goal. And it was the first story that she'd _come back_ to tell in person. And she remembered how he'd idly trace a finger over the scar when they were curled up together by the hearth and he was carefully rubbing the worry and strain from her face.

 

She chuckled bitterly. It was all of the scars she received due to her own stupidity that he had paid careful attention to.

 

She brushed a finger down the thick scar over the lids of her left eye, this one from when they'd found her face down on the ice after falling from a cliff just outside of the Camp. She'd lost her way in the blizzard, trying to run from the Syndicate's hounds after that nastiness in Ul'dah, and _literally_ walked off a cliff. The impact smashed her face on that side and actually busted the delicate organ. They'd had to cut her open to take it out and put in the glass eye that Cid – she really needed to thank him properly for all of this shit one day – had made to replace it. This, too, was infused with. . . _some kind of thing_ , she couldn't remember what, but it let her use trace amounts of her aether to see. It gave her terrible aether sickness, though, so she didn't use it much. In fact, almost never. She even wore a thick leather band over the eye most days. She couldn't really understand how Shtola did it. . .

 

But how he'd showered it with attention, at first taking turns to play nursemaid, then later when it was healed. She would cover it over, hiding it from the light so it wouldn't make her feel sick, but he would come in and coax her out of the bandages, take her face in his hands and ghost kisses along the line of it, feather light and sweet enough to bring her to tears. At first in mourning of the eye, then later at his gracious affections.

 

And then now.

 

She sniffed hard as the rings on her fingers clinked against the glass bottle and lifted it to wet her chapped lips. The bitter liquid was near frozen, though it had begun the trip near boiling, but she was still able to coax out a mouthful. She swished the frozen mush around in her cheeks, melting it and relishing in the way it bit at her tongue, like that arrow head, and seared down her throat when she swallowed. As it settled in her belly it warmed her, just enough to take the edge off. Just enough to dissolve the handful of tears that threatened to spill.

 

She rested her head heavily on the cool, stone slab at her back, the epitaph having long since eroded away by the unrelenting storms, and she whispered the long since memorized phrasing to the abyss. They were so deeply ingrained now that she would keep them stitched on her heart till it stopped beating. She sometimes wished that it would, when she was drowning in the darkness of her own hurt, but it wouldn't.

 

Or at least, it hadn't yet.

 

And when she wished that it would and it would not, she would visit. A fact that bothered some few and really only those that truly knew her. Francel, she considered, was one of those few. And he would offer her comforting words, all the while doing his own grieving. And Aymeric, was another, having been the reason they were there. She could not stand to see the pain reflected on his face and so she began to visit on nights like these. When the calm midnight air and settled ice and snows were ravaged by the gales that howled through the cliffs like great beasts. It felt right, to have the weather reflect her inner turmoil.

 

She licked her lips, tongue dry as sand and doing little to soothe them but for gathering the remnants of the mulled whiskey that clung to them. She heaved a breath around the ice in her lungs, burning like the drink, but edged like a razor. She kept herself from coughing by holding it in, then releasing it a bit at a time till she needed another. Her breath wheezed silently in and out of her.

 

The bottle in her hand was growing heavy, along with her already crushing mood, and she let it slip to the ground between her feet to roll a few ilms away. She should have brought the Ice Tears. It made more sense, in an ironic way. A drink that was made from ice trap sap and kept cold so that the inherent poison coagulated in a thin lair at the top. It was potent and deadly in large amounts, but it burned through the veins and was made to keep ice fishers warm, crazy bastards. But they had shared a bottle on multiple occasions, when it was cold out or _they_ were just cold from missing each other's company. She'd even used it to drug him once, the poison left in the vial she'd given him to drink, so that he'd hold still long enough for her to treat his frostbite. She still felt guilty for that, and for leaving him so pock-marked after that, but she'd managed to save the flesh below and that was the important part. He'd never even mentioned it, if he'd remembered the night at all.

 

 _I need you here to forgive me_ , came thoughts unbidden. She did need him to forgive her and he would have, but she also knew that she wouldn't accept it. She would take **this** guilt to the grave.

 

The guilt of having lost him.

 

It was a double edged guilt. A guilt that he had died in her arms. In Aymeric's arms. A guilt that cut both ways, because he had done it for both of them. First to get Aymeric from the tender mercies of the Heaven's Ward and then again to get her out of the way of her own carelessness. She'd chased after the bastard that turned them loose and the bolt was meant for her. And she wished she'd taken the bolt instead of him. It couldn't have hurt as much as this.

 

She was the only one that could remember. That could remember his scream, distantly, when it shattered his shield and pierced him through. She was glad to be the one that remembered it, if only to keep it from haunting their nightmares. It felt right. And the significance of his agonizing scream tearing out of her whenever she woke from those nightmares was not lost on her. She didn't mind that it had left her spitting blood and leaving her vocal chords raw and her voice a breezy whisper most days. She would never sing again, anyway, and she didn't mind much. She would never feel like singing again.

 

The years would heal, they said, but how could she heal if things were constantly poking at the wounds? She hadn't had a break since that day. Hadn't had the time to mourn, except for when she stole away for nights like this. They could all be dead in their bedrolls when she returned, but she would be none the wiser. And that, too, weighed heavily on her conscience. Leaving them with no warning to come here to be with him, regardless of the circumstance. But she couldn't stop herself. Didn't want to.

 

He wasn't even buried here, she knew. They might never tell her _where_ he was buried, for fear that she'd climb into the grave with him. And she _knew_ he wasn't here because she'd _tried_.

 

She pulled the frozen shield into her lap, tracing her fingers over the hole. Where once had been sharp edges that bit at her fingers, were now weathered smooth as the slab at her back, the colors of his house having begun to fade like the epitaph.

 

 _Smile for me_ , he'd said, choking on his blood. The only selfish thing he'd ever asked of her. _His last words_. It was selfish, because how could she? When he was not there to coax it out of her. Sure she smiled, sometimes, but never so brightly as when he'd smiled back. And that was the smile he wanted from her. The one that made him weak in the knees and willing to grant her wildest desires and dreams, the smile he'd sacrificed himself for. She wished the she _could_ muster that smile. Wished that if she could it would somehow bring him _back._

 

But it wouldn't. So she didn't.

 

More guilt.

 

She raised the bottle to her lips again.

 

“Are you going to sit out here all night,” a voice murmured from the other side of the head stone, and for a moment, she allowed herself to believe it was _his_.

 

She was not, however, surprised to find that it _wasn't_.

 

She startled and turned to look up into the Azure Dragoon's face. He was leaned over, arms folded over the top of the slab, and he was looking down at her from beneath his visor. His face was calm and cool, and it offended her how serene he looked when she felt this way. He watched her, unflinching, as she stumbled to her feet, or tried to, then fell back against the cold stone. He did not stop her descent, only watched and waited. He would only intervene, she knew, if he thought she might dash her head against the stones. It was the way he handled her when she was like this.

 

She cursed and lifted the glass bottle, hucking it at him with a visceral cry of rage and sorrow. He simply tilted his head to the side to avoid the thing and listened as it crashed on the ground behind him. If she were sober, he would have been worried, but her aim was terrible when she was drunk like this.

 

“A chocobo chick could try to peck you to death and you would be powerless to stop it,” he sighed, pushing off of the slab and taking a seat beside her. He reached into his boot and handed her the flask he kept there, “I did not give you this.”

 

She took it without thanking him and brought it to her lips.

 

“Gibe me wha',” she slurred, tilting her head back and swallowing down its contents like water, nearly falling back into the snow, but for the gauntleted hand that bunched up the back of her tunic.

 

He rolled his eyes and took the empty thing back, returning it to its place.

 

“Do you plan to _actually_ die in the snow tonight,” he mused, “Or are you going to make the Lord Commander play nursemaid to your frostbite and hypothermia,” he leveled his gray eyes on her accusingly, “Again?”

 

“Let me die,” she mumbled miserably, pulling her knees to her chest, half for warmth – because it was still freezing – and half to keep her balance, and maybe all because she wanted to be as small as possible.

 

“You know that I cannot,” he whispered to the winds, “ _They_ would never forgive me.”

 

“Fuhck ohff,” she shouted, “You aren't even _real!_ ”

 

He rolled his eyes at that, his voice sharp and tearing through her bitter mood like the lance on his back, “How many more nights will you drink yourself into believing that? _Nidhogg_ is **dead** and I am _**not**_. I am _**here**_ and **you** will not _be rid of me_ by drinking yourself **stupid**.”

 

“I _**wish**_ you weren't real,” she hissed, “So that I could fucking lay here and **die**.”

 

Estinien took a deep breath, counting backwards from one hundred. Sometimes it was one thousand, but tonight she was not flailing her axe at him, so it was one hundred.

 

It was probably about the hundredth time he'd had to come out to look for her. The hundredth time they'd received a message by linkpearl – they'd had to put a watch on her after the second or third time she'd come home half dead from hypothermia and too much ice trap poisoning – from Francel or Emmanealine, or one of the other knights that frequented Camp Dragonhead, after catching her stabling her chocobo only to trot off in the snow on foot.

 

“I am taking you back,” he decided for her, turning to scoop his arms beneath her back and knees.

 

 _Spoke too soon_ , he thought, as he jumped away from the blade that fell towards him, leaving a deep groove in the ground where he'd just stood. He began to count from a thousand.

 

The cry of frustration that escaped her lips as he fled was audible even over the howling winds. Her eyes burned red in the darkness, her heavy axe hefted in her hands as she still crouched on the balls of her feet. And he cursed her and the Fury for this _guilt driven depression._

 

She had perfect control of her inner beast when she didn't let herself fall into that particular hole. But nights like this, nights after something big had happened, big like Aymeric _asking her to marry him_ , were the worst for it. It was not Aymeric's fault for wanting to be with the woman, but he did not always know when she was on the verge of this abyss. Astute as he was, she was an emotional wreck on a good day and there was never any real warning as to when she would tip into her little hole of self-loathing and miserable regret.

 

Or so they'd thought.

 

Estinien had been little better off in sensing it, at first, but his travels and experience with similar problems left him more alert to the minuscule tells that he had only just begun to piece together himself. Some few telltale signs that she didn't seem to notice.

 

Like when she'd accidentally make two cups of hot chocolate, despite the fact that she was the only one in the house that drank it. It was too bitter for Aymeric, who drowned everything in blasphemous amounts of honey and birch syrup and too sweet for himself, preferring the bitterness of black coffee, even in the middle of the night. But she could never bring herself to pour it out or drink it, as though it was made for someone else, and she would leave it steaming in the kitchen. A little memorial, as though he would just appear in the night and take it, as though she'd wake to find him curled by the hearth asleep with the cup sagging in his hands. When asked, she would simply say that she'd forgotten to drink it and would pour it out, as though now that it had gone cold it was alright to do so.

 

This happened with some frequency, but it was mostly benign, because they all did silly little things to remember Lord Haurchefant. It was proof, though, that he'd been on her mind, despite the fact that he was never _truly_ far from the forefront.

 

But the smaller tells. She would drink more, and at first it seemed a small thing, because she drank too much anyway. They all did, but an extra bottle of the sweet red would go unaccounted for and then show up empty in the pile the morning after a particularly raucous night. A bottle that he and Aymeric were sure they hadn't opened. They did not question it at first, but Estinien quickly learned that it was the first sign that she was slipping.

 

A smaller tell. She would _forget_ to cheat at cards. Aymeric never seemed to notice, forgetting in their drunken stupors that she was actually _amazing_ at cards, and had the **best** _dumb luck_ he'd ever seen besides, and would cheat, she told him, to keep them on equal footing. So when she would win a little more, a little more often, and he didn't catch her out blatantly – to his trained eyes – palming a three into her hand to keep her from getting a royal flush, he would begin to take heed.

 

The smallest tell, one that was as equally a tell as a contradiction, was her sudden lack of nightmares. Aymeric thought it was actually a good sign, and he didn't have the heart to tell him otherwise. The worst of her nights, she would not wake them screaming in the middle of the night, frightened out of her dreams by some harrowing vision. It was when she did not wake them, when her sleep was so fitful that she couldn't even have a proper night-terror, _a night like last night_ , that he knew.

 

Of course, he could do little to stop her from slipping out in the morning. She had a life outside of the de Borel house, outside of Ishgard, though she basically lived there now with the two of them. She had other obligations, other duties, and other _lovers_ to keep her occupied. He previously had no idea where she was going, always saying that she'd be back in that night or in a few days. He could not have known that she would come here until she showed up.

 

So, when he started noticing the little tells stack up. An extra dirty cup. A little more coin jingling in her pocket at the end of a night of gambling. Another bottle in the pile, and neither of them having been roused to soothe her trembling and tears. He would wait for her.

 

This was only the second time he'd caught her out right, only the second time he'd read the signs properly. But he would let her get herself good and crocked before he would even approach her. Even if it wasn't the healthiest way, she needed her time to grieve. He just wouldn't allow her to _kill_ herself doing it.

 

He landed some few feet away from her, watching her carefully as she struggled with the weight of the heavy steel blade and heaved ragged puffs of breath into the cold. Maybe he should have waited a bit longer. Maybe another bottle to get her good and tired?

 

Too late now.

 

She barreled towards him and twisted, arching the thing over her head in both hands. He easily hopped to the side. Even when she was sober, she was slow, but when she wasn't drunk, she was a unpredictable. Not a muscle tensed out of place to give her away.

 

With her drunk and emotional and completely lost to the beast that raged inside her, she was obvious. Still unpredictable, but he was more familiar with it, knew her thought process better.

 

The next swipe was quicker. She wrenched the axe from the ground and curved it up diagonally, missing his hip by fractions as he lept, just in time. She was already barreling towards his landing point and he was forced to pull the spear from his back to get some more distance. He dug the blunt end of the shaft into her shoulder as he vaulted himself past her, knocking her drunken ass forward, but not off her feet. She released a low growl, more animalistic than the playful ones she did when they were alone, this was anger and hatred and rage incarnate.

 

He landed a few feet behind her and he could see her lion's tail thrashing around in frustration, slicing through the winds in its fury. Slowly she turned, those blazing eyes coming into view to rest on his face, and he saw the cruel little smile that curled her lips into a snarl. She heaved the shaft of the axe against her shoulder, slicing through the thin cotton of her tunic and rending the skin below. As the blade came away with her blood, she took it again in two hands, dragging it through the snow as she started her charge. He made to step away, but his feet wouldn't move. He looked down to see them unbound, but still they would not budge. He looked up in horror as she flew towards him, faster than he'd ever seen, her feet barely touching the ground to push her forward. She was in his face, ilms away, and he barely had the time to bring up the shaft of his spear to clash with the haft of her axe. Even with his considerable strength he could not stop the descent of the blade. She was strong and it was heavy and the combination lent to an unforgiving momentum. He hissed as the axe head bit into his shoulder, cleaving at an angle into his clavicle.

 

It was as though she could taste the blood on her axe. And that until she did, she was not aware of who she was really fighting. Like a blind dog biting the hand of its master, then soothing it with a lick when it realized it was never in danger.

 

She startled, eyes wide and dark and light again, looking at the axe in her hands in horror and tossing it away from herself as though it were an angry basilisk about to strike. It clattered to the ground with a loud clang and lay there, dripping their blood across the pale winter white. “Shit,” she hissed, placing a hand over the wound of her shoulder, only just now noticing that it hurt. She looked up at him in concern, her eyes trailing from his face to his shoulder. “ **Shit** ,” she said again, reaching up to place her bloody hands against his own wound. She paid little mind to her own and he could see that they were already beginning to knit closed, fast healing gifted by her god.

 

“It is fine,” he hissed, but he could not keep from gritting his teeth as her fingers fluttered across the ragged edges. He snatched her hands away, holding her wrists and giving her a good shake when she began to panic, “Stop. It will be fine.”

 

“I-I-I,” she was stumbling over her slurred words and he shook her again.

 

“It. Will. Be. Fine,” he narrowed his eyes down at hers and watched as they filled with tears. He took a deep breath and counted down from a thousand. He got to about nine hundred seventy when she began to sniffle and nine hundred twenty two when the first sob escaped her lips. At the sound, he released her wrist and snatched her face up by the chin. She gasped and squeezed her eyes shut, and he followed the trail of a fat tear down her face till it broke over the finger of his gauntlet. She took a deep ragged breath and as she opened her mouth to apologize he smashed his lips against hers, swallowing her words before she could utter them. She whimpered and pushed against him, but he held her fast by her chin, released her wrist and tugged her closer by her hip. She released another sad sound into his throat, but stopped pushing, though her tears did not flowing. If anything, they became heavier.

 

He eased back a fraction, letting her breath, but resting his forehead against hers. She took a few wet breaths, settling her hands on his shoulders to steady herself. He winced, but let her, dropping his hand from her chin to wrap around her shoulders. He watched her face as she sobbed loudly, only just now seeing how pale her normally dark, bronzed skin was. Maybe he'd waited too long. . .

 

She cried for a long time and she curled her arms around his neck, leaning into his hold. He knew that his armor must be uncomfortably cold against her thinly veiled skin, but figured it was too little too late at this point. He wasn't going to take it off out in the open and she wasn't going to magically start _wearing more clothes_.

 

He always felt awkward, holding her like this when she cried, and he never knew what to do with his hands or what to say. Aymeric would hold her and kiss her cheeks and rub her back and whisper soothingly to her. He was not Aymeric. He was not good at calming hurt feelings or saying nice things for the benefit of others. He was not good at emotions.

 

He was good at physical things. He was good at giving people dirty looks and making them shake in their boots. He was good at killing and maiming. And he was good at kissing and at touching. He was good at holding her down and driving her into the mattress until she was quivering and screaming his name.

 

But that kind of thing was not the right thing in this instance. So instead, he held her tightly against him, the both of them bleeding all over each other, and only hoped that she did not cut herself on the edge of the plates of his armor.

 

After a long while, he wasn't even sure how long, she pushed herself away from his chest and frowned at him. He was about to lean down to kiss the frown from her face when she slapped a hand on his chest, shaking her head fervently and bringing a hand to her mouth. He raised a brow at her in confusion and she wrenched herself away and went to her knees, heaving a shallow breath before retching all over the toes of his boots.

 

He began counting again, raising his eyes and his hands to the heavens as though asking for mercy, and taking a slow, deep breath as Aymeric had taught him. After a moment of forcing his anger back down in his chest – and loosing count about ten times – he knelt down to roughly gather her green and yellow tresses out of her face and used his grip to turn her away from his person. She released a pitiful, strangled, breathless laugh before she began retching again in earnest. He smoothed his hand over her back and held her hair, waiting impatiently for her till she was done.

 

Her shoulders heaved as she tried to catch her breath and he tugged her hair a little to get her attention.

 

“You done,” he grumbled, gray eyes looking for traces of nausea still on her face.

 

She sniffed and rubbed her sleeve over her eyes and mouth – he crinkled his nose in disgust – before giving him a weak little nod.

 

“Taking you home,” he muttered as he gathered her up in his arms. She frowned as her eyes refused to focus on his face. “Me axe,” she slurred.

 

“Will be here,” he sighed, forcefully tucking her head against the crook of his neck and slowly starting the unforgiving march back to Camp Dragonhead, “Or beside your bed in the morning if someone has the bad idea to return it to you.”

 

The trek back to camp was not a the longest he'd made, but it was slow going because of the blustering wind. She was silent for the majority of the trip, only grunting uncomfortably when he lept away to avoid a beast that took too much interest, unused to the feeling of soaring through the air like him. He thought she might puke on him again when he landed particularly hard, but she swallowed hard and took shallow breaths that whistled through her nose. She did this until she was forced to open her mouth to breath again, unable to breath properly from the old wound at the bridge of her nose. After taking a few gasping breaths she nodded her head and they continued on.

 

He was certain that she'd fallen asleep when they rounded the bend and the fort came into view, but she curled her fingers in the neck of his gambeson and leaned up to kiss his cheek, whispering against his skin, “I'm sorry for being like this.”

 

He hefted her up, readjusting his grip on her, because even though she was slight of frame and lean, she was still mostly muscle and that made her _heavy._ She groaned in displeasure and quieted, just holding on so he wouldn't drop her. He tried to think of what Aymeric would say, but nothing that popped up sounded right in the moment.

 

“I do not care if you throw yourself off another cliff,” he said finally, as he continued through the gates, glaring at the guard that made a move towards them. The man stopped in his tracks and that tugged a faint smirk to his lips. Once they were passed him and alone in the arch of the bridge, continued, “Or if you get chewed up, swallowed, and shat out the other end of a dragon.” He watched as she opened her eyes, one dull, sparkling black, the other glowing phosphorescent yellow, and both narrowing at him in annoyance.

 

“Why bother, then,” she rumbled, a little pout settling on her lips as the hurt of his words settled in. He was not saying this right and it frustrated him.

 

He tried again.

 

“Because I do not care if you fight a hundred Garlean machines and get yourself all full of holes,” he huffed when he realized that this was basically what he'd said before.

 

She began to flail in his arms, trying to get him to put her down. He growled and held her tighter, but she was slippery and more likely to bash herself into the cobbles than actually get her footing. When she dug her claws into his injured shoulder and swung a tiny fist at his temple; his patience gave and he slammed her into the wall of the arch.

 

“Why the **fuck** are you here,” she choked as the air was forced out of her lungs and her angry eyes bored into his soul, “Why the fuck did you come to get me?!”

 

“Because,” he practically spit in her face, then a fine tremor setting him shaking with anger and unspoken emotion. His lips pulled taught into streamed down her face, “I don't care if you go out and get thrashed by every damned man, beast, and god out there! I don't CARE if you drink yourself into stupidity and bury yourself in the snow like some rodent for weeks at a time!” Again, he knew that these words weren't the right ones and in a rare show of weakness, he rested his head against her shoulder, rallying for what he really wanted to say, “We just. . . I-. . .” He took a deep breath, swallowed a few times, growled in frustration, and finally, whispered wetly into her skin, “ _ **Aymeric**_ just _needs you to_ _ **come back**_ _. . ._ ” He swallowed a whimper, schooling his shaking breath, and his next words were a bit more steady, his cocky sarcasm coloring them again, “Breathing, preferably.”

 

The tears in her eyes continued as she leaned her head back against the stone brick wall, looking up into the darkness of the alcove. The wall beneath her back hummed with the aetheryte above and she just let it through her, taking in the moment. They were quiet, deathly still but for her sniffles and his heavy breathing. She could feel him tense against her, could feel the tension hanging in the air around them. She was too drunk for something this heavy, too drunk and too tired for all of these emotions. She couldn't handle him being tender and sweet when she was feeling so raw and vulnerable and all _fucked up_. She didn't deserve it and it pissed her off.

 

Even as she let the bitter words slip from her lips, she knew that it was _exactly_ the **wrong** thing to say

 

“Couldn't find a whore to whisper sweet to you, hmm?” She cringed at her own crude joke, waiting for him to strike her or slam her into the wall again, something, anything but say something kind. His rage and wicked sarcasm and careless bitterness she could handle. Anything, but this.

 

She heard him growl, felt his fingers tighten on her shoulders as he pressed her harder into the wall, and she braced herself for a good smack, “Can't afford one, some _**bitch**_ keeps cheating me out of all my hard earned gil . .” He spat, matching hateful words for hateful words, knowing that she hated it when he called her that.

 

She sniffed. Swallowed. Tried, and failed, to blink the tears from her eyes, and finally settled on shifting uncomfortably beneath his grip, chin dipping against her chest in shame, “I deserved that.”

 

“Yes, you did,” and she could feel the fine tremor in his arms as he fought not to bash her into the wall again. He settled her on her feet and took a step back, as though the slight distance would be enough to calm him. It apparently wasn't and he turned to slam his armored fist into the wall across from them, shouting his anger and pain to the night, the aetheryte, and all of the fort.

 

“I knew it,” he hissed, quiet at first, then he slammed both fists into the wall, the impact giving him some kind of relief. Estinien was _**good**_ at angry, “ **I FUCKING KNEW IT**! I _**TOLD**_ Aymeric we shouldn't have asked you!”

 

“We,” she piped up, startled and frozen in place.

 

“Yes, _**WE**_! You _daft_ **cunt** ,” he hissed, turning his gray gaze momentarily to her before turning it away again. But she'd seen the pain there and he pointedly did not look at her now.

 

“You didn't as-”

 

“Of course not! I'm not _good_ with this shit,” he growled, “That's why Aymeric did it!”

 

“But you hat-”

 

His chest heaved and he could only roar at her, he fell to his knees and continued to take out his aggression against the ground, the wall, anything he could reach that wasn't _her_. She was about to step forward when he lifted his pain struck eyes, darkened and cloudy like the storm that tore through the central highlands. His voice came painfully quiet, the strain and softness causing her ears to flick forward so that she could hear him properly, “I know its stupid. I just don't understand why you can love Mesha and Occam and not. . .” He cut himself off, swallowing a strangled cry of rage and slamming his fist into the ground.

 

 _She_ was angry now, tired of being interrupted and angry that he would throw her other lovers into this. He had no right!

 

“I came to Eorzea with Mesha, Estinien! I've known her almost my whole life! And Occam. . . Occam has seen me fall apart and pulled my stupid ass together half a million gods damned times! They know how FUCKED up I am! They know I'm a Twelve's DAMNED wreck! They don't care that I'm a _**piece of shit**_! They **love** me anyway!”

 

“I don't care that you are this _**broken. Fucking. thing**_ ,” he howled, “I don't _**care**_ that you still **love** Haurchefant and I don't _**care**_ that you can't _get over him_! I don't care about any of that shit! _**I FUCKING LOVE YOU, Fucking CRAZYASS BITCH! WHY CAN'T YOU SEE THAT?!**_ ”

 

Her breath caught in her throat at his words, her lungs tightened and she couldn't breath. The world swam before her eyes and she slipped onto her ass, bowled over by the naked conviction and sincerity in his harsh words. It took her a few tries to speak again, her mouth opening and closing, making her look like a particularly _dim_ trout, hooked on his every crass word.

 

“Love me,” she coughed, the knot in her throat choking her and robbing mind of anything more comprehensible.

 

“ _Fury knows why_ , but **yes**! Fucking yes!I fucking _**love**_ you,” he cried and finally the tears fell. **“** Halone I am a _fucking_ idiot,” he sobbed wetly, burying his face in his busted hands and shivering hard.

 

The adrenaline sapped out of her and she could only manage to crawl towards him, falling to her hands and knees and reaching out for him. She hesitated a few times before finally resting a hand on the top of his head. He flinched away as if she'd burned him, but she grabbed his uninjured shoulder and held on. He made to brush her away, grunting in frustration as she held fast and grabbed at his hand with her other. He did not look at her when she pressed her forehead against his. “You've never said,” she whispered.

 

He snorted bitterly, a strangled breath of a laugh, and leaned back against the stones, “I've never sai-. . .” He did look at her then, looking miserable and like someone had murdered his family all over again, “Haven't I _shown_ you?”

 

That struck her, struck her like a ball bearing fired from a musket, right between the eyes. The echo reverberated the thoughts in her aching head and she remembered.

 

Remembered when he was possessed by Nidhogg's shade and him begging her to kill him so that he couldn't hurt them anymore. Remembered him leaving without a word so that his presence wouldn't stir unrest in Ishgard. Remembered the little letters that he sent to Aymeric and how sometimes the words were a little rushed and didn't quite make sense. How the ink had dried in thick blots in places, as though he set the pen to paper and couldn't quite bring himself to say what he wanted to. How he'd appeared, taken down the cannon at Castrum Abania, and left without a word. How she had thought she'd caught a few glimpses of his white hair and blue plate mail in the crowd as Lyse gave her victory speech. How one day after the primary struggled had ended, he'd just breezed back into their lives, still as sarcastic and ornery as though nothing had happened at all. How, even though drunk, he'd thrown her down and tickled her breathless to get at a card she'd stuffed in her bra. How he'd kissed Aymeric so passionately and how he'd tucked her in when she was too drunk to follow them upstairs. How even though she'd burst in on them the next morning, he'd not turned her away, hadn't shouted at her to leave, hadn't covered himself up. How even though he said hateful, angry things to her, he'd still smile when she retaliated with her own. How even though he'd refused to kiss her for months, he'd eventually, and again while drunk, finally kissed her, even if it was on a dare. How even though he would spit and hiss and call her an idiot he'd eventually do what she asked, no matter how insignificant the errand. How even when Aymeric wouldn't come home when he was supposed to, he'd sit and have dinner with her, would share a bottle or three of sweet red, would let her get away with cheating at cards and wouldn't question when she forgot where she was and screamed for hours after waking from some terrible nightmare. How after months of letting Aymeric deal with her, he'd finally whisked her away and held her while she cried like a child, even if it only seemed like it was for Aymeric to get some sleep. How he didn't mind sharing Aymeric with her, even when it seemed he wanted him to himself. How sometimes he'd twine his fingers with she and Aymeric's when they made love to him. How sometimes he would peck her on the cheek or the forehead when she said something stupid, even if it was followed by some kind of derisive comment against her intelligent. How he would come out into the snow. . . How he would drag her home and dumb her in a hot bath to get the chill out of her bones and wouldn't let her out till she was pruney and passing out before he deposited her back into Aymeric's tender mercies. . . How he. . . kissed her. . . sometimes, when he didn't know what else to do with her. . . They're words not wielded as sharpened blades any longer. . .

 

“Yes,” she gasped, closing her eyes against the pain of the echo passing, though she wasn't sure if it was the echo or her own blind idiocy that made her heart constrict and tore the breath from her lungs. She hiccuped and she was crying again because she was stupid and she couldn't even find the words to tell him how sorry she was for ignoring all of the signs, all of the little tells, all of the things he'd done to prove his love for her. There were no words.

 

So she showed him.

 

She dug her fingers into his shoulder, tore his head upwards, and mashed their stupid mouths together. She tore at his lips with her tongue and teeth, shoved her tongue in his mouth and swallowed down his protests with a growl. Her fingers clawed at the buckles of his armor, frantically trying to tug them open to get the stupid fucking freezing metal off of his strong, hot body. Craved the warmth his skin could provide her.

 

He sucked in a breath when they finally parted and she couldn't even get a word out before he mashed them together again, taking her mouth hungrily and passionately and poured all of his pain and anguish and frustration with her down her throat with a choked sob of need.

 

Her gathered her up, clawed gauntlets digging into her thighs and backside and slammed her into the wall again. She gasped out her breath and he was kissing her again before she could get it back, **suffocating** her with _tongue_ , and **teeth** , and _**sensation**_ until she was banging her fists against his chest and bodily shoving him away so that she could just _**breathe**_.

 

They both came away gasping for air, he struggling with the buckles of his armor and she tossing her tunic over her head. She was trying to wiggle out of her breeches when he finally growled his frustration against her neck.

 

“ _Sod it all_ ,” he hissed as he tore off a gauntlet, sending the buckles jangling across the stones and down the path. He shoved that gloved hand down the front of her braes and roughly parted her folds, exposing her clit and bearing down on it with his thumb. While it wasn't entirely pleasant, she didn't have the mind to stop him as he shoved a single finger inside of her. She was searing on this cold night and any little pain he thought to give her, she could accept as pleasure. He had her panting and groaning before she could think to shove him away, anyhow.

 

She shuddered under his hands as she worked the laces on his breeches and used the heels of her feet to shove them down his thighs, exposing him to the cold air and taking him in hand. She roughly fumbled with his cock, claws grazing him as she stroked him up and down, holding the head between thumb and forefinger, running the thumb of her other hand over the little knot just below his head. He sank his teeth into her shoulder, lapping at what blood remained there, and thrust into her hands wantonly.

 

Hands were not enough, ere long, and it was just as he was peeling the leather of her braes over her backside and down her hips that someone came upon them.

 

What a pair they must have made, the Warrior of Light pinned against a wall in the darkness of the arch, dark skin pale with cold and flushed with heat. Her naked breasts heaving and the former bloody Azure Dragoon looming over her, hand down her pants and dry humping into her hands. And never mind the blood, dried in places and still glistening in others, painting them both with gore. They must appear a grizzly mess.

 

“A-Ah,” some guard, some sodding guard. He averted his eyes from her nakedness long enough to reach for his sword and narrow his eyes at the dragoon, “M-my lady?” Ah, right, chivalry and all that.

 

They tore their mouths from each other long enough to shout a quick, “ _ **SOD OFF**_ ,” and give the intruder a withering stare. Storm gray, ebony black, and unnaturally glowing gold. Two separate glares, from equally imposing figures, that alone were enough to make a man piss himself if on the wrong end of it. And he'd gotten the full power of both.

 

The poor man veritably withered away, quickly turning on his heel to escape any wrath he may bring down on his head.

 

Estinien turned back to grunt his annoyance at the bastard for disturbing them, and she barely managed to croak out, “J-just 'round the corn'r. . . Less pryin' Ah-!eyes. . .” He growled his frustration and hiked her up against him, readjusting his grip on her to make ready for the change of scenery. He followed her directions, taking them around the corner and through the door beneath the stairs to the armory. The door gave little resistance as he lifted a foot and kicked it open. It slammed open with a crash and the clattering of metal armaments, sending one of the racks toppling with the force. He cursed and stumbled over the fallen weapons, hitting his knees hard with a squeal of his grieves and mashing her beneath him into the floor. The noise would certainly bring more attention and he intended to make _damned sure_ that any that happened upon them _knew_ what was happening inside this darkened, little room _long_ before they could shine the light of a lantern on them.

 

He tugged her by the ankles and pounded himself into her. Her claws scraped along the plates of his mail and into his back and shoulders. She crossed her feet behind his back and they both thrust their hips as one. With no little force he hilted inside of her, and for a moment there was nothing but the strangled cries of satisfaction and _feeling_ and then their ragged breathing as they adjusted to each other.

 

He rested his cheek against hers, their sweat slicked hair sticking to their skin, and laughed, a small thing, both amused and bitter. She leaned up and nipped his earlobe, sucking it into her mouth and rolling it between her teeth. He ground against her, making her pant heavily into his ear, and he shivered at the feeling of her hot, wet breath in his ear, and the little gasps that fell from her lips were tugging at the thing low in his belly.

 

“ _Fury_ ,” he whispered, digging his fingers into the meat of her behind, earning himself a little hum of appreciation.

 

“Mmh, _Fury_ is it,” she growled, curling her tongue along the shell of his ear and biting the sensitive tip. She dug her heels into his rear and forced them together again, pulling a hissing breath from his lips, “Don't go sweet on me now.” She found the edge of his open wound and dug her claws into its ragged flesh.

 

“Ach! Little bitch,” he spat, giving her a particularly solid gouge in retaliation, which she took with a grateful little purr, “Like it raw, do you, then?”

 

“That's right,” she chuckled cruelly, using her grip with her legs to angle herself upward, reclining back on her elbows and leveling him with her onyx black and unnaturally bright, glowing, golden eye. He gazed into those eyes, lost for a moment as she rocked her hips against him, grinding and riding him as best she could from her position. She was rolling her lower lip between her teeth, stifling her louder moans by bruising them with her fangs, and he liked the way the blood welled just below the surface. There was something bewitching about her being spread out before him, knowing that she had to use her own life's aether to see with the magicked glass eye, knowing that some hour ago she'd been ready to climb into herself and never come out, knowing that he could bring out this brutal side of her with a few hateful words, hands burrowing into her skin, and impaling her on his cock. That, and the stink of sex and blood in the air. It painted a visceral setting for their frayed nerves and hurt feelings and baser needs.

 

She was growling at him again, low and hungry and dangerous, “I might come to my senses if you don't bury me in the ground. . .”

 

He was instantly pounding into her, his grip in the muscles of hips and ass bruising and sharp from his one gauntleted hand. This was good, but . . .

 

“Shit,” she hissed as he re-adjusted his grip and tugged her by her ankles pulling her fully beneath him, throwing her lean muscled legs over his shoulders, and bearing the full weight of himself and his heavy plate down on her. From this angle he could really get deep and she was really crowing now, a sharp shout of pleasure/pain every time he slammed against her cervix. She curled her arms under her knees and held on for dear life as he rutted her into the stones with reckless, careless abandon, no care for her comfort. She seemed to get off on it and he could feel his thrusts going in easier, less resistance as she cried out and swore and spat, getting wetter by the second.

 

“Yess! Fu-uck! Ah!”

 

Now all that was left was to get her to _scream his name_.

 

He grabbed at her ankles again, tearing her legs up over her head, practically folding her in half and forcing the air out of her lungs with the weight of him. She rasped for a few more thrusts before he was driving her into the ground and she was screaming every obscenity and filthy word her mind could conjure, cursing the Seven Hells and **every . Last. Damned. One.** of the Twelve in a hoarse chorus of blasphemous ruin.

 

 _Everything_ but his _**name**_. He longed for her name to be torn from her throat, to hear it in the air as she fell apart beneath him, but nothing. How he wanted to hear it. _**Needed**_ to hear it. The way that she shouted Aymeric's name when he made-love to her. Or how she cried Haurchefant's name in her fits of nightmare. Anything just to hear it now.

 

She swallowed hard and her voice was raw, pained and pleasured and needy, and he could almost taste her undoing on his lips as she quaked beneath him.

 

She was stubborn and bull-headed and callous and hateful and he hated and loved her and he just wanted her to want him as much as he wanted her and. . .

 

Stars burst behind his eyes and it was all he could do not to drown in her. The essence of her sweat on his skin and the musk of her sex and that faint spice of foreign lands that she carried with her and the sound of her voice, ravaged from pleasure and pain and her drowning sorrows and for a moment he thought he could hear the dulcet bell tone of the songs she used to sing. Sang when she was happy and in love and wasn't slowly killing herself with drink and self-loathing. The songs she sang when Haurchefant was alive.

 

He groaned her name as he slumped against her, grinding into her wet heat and milking his orgasm for all it was worth. She was suffocatingly tight and he thought he might black out from the **all** of her that bore into his senses like some sickly sweet perfume cloying the air from his lungs.

 

Her breathing was ragged and heavy, her body shaking from the force of her own orgasm, and the little sounds that wheezed out of her were pained and tear some and strained from the weight of him crushing her into the bitter cold stones below them. He gave her one last forceful thrust, eliciting a pitiful little sound from her wrecked throat and leaving her sticky and dripping with his cum.

 

He rolled to the side of her and flattened himself on his back. They lay there just breathing, just being for what felt like hours. He couldn't even look at her, couldn't stand to see the regret and hatred in her face that was sure to be there. He'd all but forced himself on her, even if she came around to it eventually and it made him feel disgusting. It was deplorable and he would carry this shame to an early grave.

 

A little sound reached his ears and he was almost tempted to fall on his spear at how weak it was.

 

“Es-,” she was wheezing, and he could hear the effort it was taking her just to _breathe_.

 

“Esti-hah-Estinien,” she whispered and he felt her fingers curl weakly around his forearm.

 

Her name on his lips after all that he'd done to her made him wish he weren't born.

 

“Estinien,” she breathed a little louder, a little more frantic and she circled her long fingers around his naked wrist, “I-I uh. . . I think you-.” She took a deep, wet breath, but a little breathless laugh choked out of her, “I think. . . you took me a little to literally. . .” Her could feel her hot breath on his cheek and he dared to look over at her.

 

Her face was a cross between serene content and begruding pain and he thought that his heart might beat out of his chest. She was bloody smiling at him.

 

“How are you,” he choked, shaking his head in disbelief.

 

“W-what's wrong,” she chuckled, and he could hear the mirth in her tired voice.

 

“What's wrong,” he hissed, he couldn't help himself. He'd just forced her into his arms, fucked her into the paves and probably _broken her in half._ And she was asking _him_ what was wrong. He shouted it into the air as though putting it in the open would help relieve his guilt ridden mind.

 

“Estinien,” she murmured, rolling to face him with a grimace. She shut her eyes for a long moment before looking at him again, a little smile curling her lips, “Estinien, I _love_ you.”

 

“Halone, you're mad,” he crowed, awe struck and unbelieving.

 

“I mean,” she snorted, rolling her beautiful mismatched eyes in irritation, “You don't go throwing yourself at _gods_ and fighting **other people's** wars if you're not a _little_ touched. . .” She squirmed closer and pressed her soft, ruined lips to his torn shoulder, before her voice was husky in his ears again, “Don't go tearing dragon eyes out of a man if you're not a little _fucked up_. . .” She reached out to take his chin in her hand, turning his head to brush her lips against his, “Don't let a man throw you around and break you down if you don't _**love**_ him. . .”

 

“Are you like this with Aymeric,” was the only thing he could think to say.

 

“No,” she _giggled._

 

He rolled over to look at her properly, seeing her onyx orb , “You _crazy_ bitch. . .”

 

“You're crazy bitch,” she murmured the question against his neck, twining his fingers into her snowy locks.

 

He pressed himself over her and breathed her in, his relief palpable and all encompassing. She squirmed beneath him and he heard her swear. “I-I uh, I think ya might've,” and her next breath puffed out of her in a wince, “I-I think you might've . . . _cracked_ one of my ribs. . . with yer armor. . .”

 

“Your ri-,” he brought a hand to his mouth and squeezed his eyes shut. Aymeric was _**actually**_ going to **kill him**. Drive him through with his big ass sword and bury him in an unmarked grave for this.

 

“ _Fury, save my soul_. _I am a_ _ **dead**_ _man. . ._ ”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave kudos and comments if you would like to see more of this ridiculousness from me and I'll be happy to post more later. I'm currently working on a really cute smut piece of Aymeric and Estinien.
> 
> (The story hasn't updated, but I wanted to share this hilarious song that I heard today that just fits perfectly for this pairing. It's called 'Cowards' by Raleigh Ritchie. Just listen to it, you'll get it. XD)


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